Cobb's Island
Why is it that the sea has never washed Cobb's Island destructively, until, within the past six years?
As that question is being asked by everybody interested in Cobb's I modestly venture an answer -- as no one else seems ready or willing to do so.
The question itself misleads.
It assumes what is not true. For the sea has been washing the island destructively, probably for hundreds of years; certainly and rapidly year by year during the past sixty years.
The misconception originated in the picture called up by the mind, when we say or think of "Cobb's Island." We think and speak of a mere little fraction of the Island; its south end or inhabited part. Now it is true that this part has changed, but very little during the past sixty years. Mr Nathan Cobb, now past seventy-two years, spent sixty of those years on Cobb's. The storm of last October wrecked his cherished home and drove him from the island.
He had noted that for fifty years, on an average of about every seven years, a destructive storm had washed away a bit of the outer margin of beach at this south end, but the sea had always replaced it, shortly after [illegible].
LOOK SEAWARD.
A great breakwater north of it is diminished and almost demolished. If the reader will take an imaginary trip with me (take the real trip if you go there this summer) I will explain and illustrate my meaning as we journey. Imagine yourself at Prout's Point. This is the extreme north end of the island, seven miles from the inhabited part that you always think of when you speak of "Cobb's." Mounting the sand hills and looking southward, you can see the distant buildings, towards which we leisurely journey, over this seven miles stretch of sandy sea-beach.
For our purpose it is necessary to have the tide at low ebb, as you now see it.
Before we start look seaward.
That tiny islet of marsh, crowning those reefs, was once a comparatively large island itself. Cargoes from stranded vessels have been landed and stored on its high ridges. At that time its reefs were shoaler, and they stretched their protecting barriers much, very much farther seaward than they do today.
That outlying island, with its system of shoals, protected this upper part of Cobb's Island. And the upper length of Cobb's, with that outer island and its shoals, constituted the breakwater that protected lower Cobb's with its inhabitants.
Now let us journey southward.
Notice how rapidly the island begins to narrow. We have now traveled several miles, and are really at what used to be the end of Prout's Island. Years ago, an inlet flowed through here, dividing Prout's from Cobb's. The inlet filled with sand, and thus united the two islands. Not far from this inlet, about forty years ago, a hotel was built. Today its site is under the sea, at least half a mile from shore. Observe how narrow our ribbon has become.
FIFTY YEARS AGO.
At high water a strong arm can throw a shell from the sea that will almost fall into the broadwater or bay inside. Fifty years ago, it would have required a musket or rifle to have sent a missile from surf to bay at this very place that is now so narrow.
When Mr. Nathan Cobb, Sr. purchased the island in 1837, a wide marsh extended itself along this inner side. One of its creeks ran directly from the broadwater towards the sea. Mr. Nathan Cobb, Jr. will tell you to day that he often sailed up this creek, fasted his boat and then, well -- for awhile, Izaak Walton himself might have envied "Uncle Nathan," for the head of this creek was a famous fishing place, known as "The Deep Hole."
Now picture to yourself that wide meadow of marsh with its creeks, then the high extensive sandy stretch between the marsh and the sea, and you get an idea of the width of the island at this place of fifty years ago.
We are about at the place now and as you see it is less than two hundred yards wide. Just think of it, the sea has removed the whole width of the island here except the inmost edge of that old marsh and this is fast going daily. And remember it was the breakwater of lower Cobb's undergoing destruction.
Little by little so that you would not miss it at the time, the sea bit off and swirled away the whole breadth of that wide sandy frontage. Then it began on the marsh. Here its destructive invasions were most insidious and deceptive. Pushing a belt of sand ahead of it on the marsh it hid both the marsh and its destructive work. Some who frequented that beach from childhood, growing old as imperceptibly as the island was being destroyed, have stood on this beach recently in their old age, without realizing that the belt or sand beach had moved inland, until they were now standing over the very inner marshes that they had stood on and tramped and gunned in their boyhood days. That is they did not realize it until their attention was called to it.
MURDER WILL OUT.
Step down to the verge of the sea at this point, and I will show you the turfy edge of the marsh. Just as you would peel a banana before eating it, so the sea has uncovered this edge, before devouring it.
But you must catch the crafty sea at the disadvantage of low water -- as we do now, to see this.
It hides its ravages well, but as murder will out, so this denuded turf and broken sods tell their story and tell it well. And notice all along these sands the unimpeachable testimony of the shells. Mute, but eloquent accusers and witnesses are these wave-worn, sun-bleached shells. Growing in the quiet waters of the sheltered creeks inside the island, far away from the noisy beach with its hungry sea, no dream of such doom for the bivalves entered the minds of those who knew these oyster beds -- less than a century ago. But destroying as it came, the sea crept closer, closer, until the belt of its advancing sands was near enough for the willing winds to drift these sands into every creek and stream, filling and overshadowing them, and destroying the bivalves they contained. These shells remained thus buried until the sea, soon reaching them, uncovered them, tore them from their cozy beds, and rudely hurled them upon the beach, as trophies of its conquest.
DEFENCELESS.
But we are nearly at "Cobb's, with its wrecked and its remaining buildings. Pause and cast a glance backward over the six and a half miles that we have travelled. Put an imaginary front to the island. Extend it out to sea, all the way along. Put it from a half to three fourths of a mile from shore. This gives you the shore line of a half century ago. At that time, and until recently, lower Cobb's curved inward. It resembled the horn of a crescent, and was protected by the convexity above.
All that convexity, that last protecting breakwater is gone, leaving a straight shore only, above the crescent end of Cobb's. If a little washing took place at the lower end there was always a plenty of sand above for the sea to bring down to repair damages with. But taking away the breakwater, it took away this means of repairing damages. Lower Cobb's is now subjected to washings without any extra protection, just as other parts of the island have been all the time that this part was protected.
When the end will come, and what it will be, no one can predict. The island will first be cut in two. Then as lower Cobb's will be on the south side of the new inlet, it may be built up by the shifting sands, instead of being destroyed. When we first started on this saunter down the beach I asked you to look seaward. Now that we are about to separate, I again ask you to look seaward. Miles away, you see the white breakers on the distant shoals. Those shoals are on the old foundations of the island. There it uplifted its forests of cedar and pine. And as we do now, so then, its aborigines fished its waters and trod its shelving shores.
Bloxom, Va., May 29.
J. R. S.